JOHN MCMANUS REACTS AND ISSUES STATEMENT AFTER WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD VOTE

Background: On November 7 the State Water Resources Control Board voted to delay, again, a critical vote to improve flow conditions on the San Joaquin River and its tributaries. The Board delayed that vote for at least 30 days.

For 22 years, the existing State Water Board flow standards have failed to stop the slow collapse of the Bay-Delta ecosystem, the great Central Valley rivers that feed it, its many fish species and the California salmon fishing industry. For almost a decade, the Water Board has been working on new river flow requirements. In 2010, they found that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly calls for a significant increase in flow in the Bay-Delta rivers. Over the past decade, water users have had ample time to negotiate a credible, broadly supported settlement as an alternative to new Board flow protections.

On October 30, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution calling for the Water Board to vote on November 7. At that meeting, SFPUC General Manager Harlan Kelly told the Board of Supervisors that he was “comfortable” with Supervisor Peskin’s resolution calling for the Water Board to vote on proposed standards. Then, two days later, he reneged, opposed the resolution that he had supported, and persuaded the mayor to veto it.

Quote from John McManus, President of the Golden Gate Salmon Association: “California lost a historic chance to heal a great environmental wound that is diverting Central Valley rivers and choking the life out of them, including our salmon runs. Instead of voting to restore rivers, the Water Board kicked the can down the road, just as its predecessors did in the 1980s and 1990s when Governors Deukmejian and Wilson forced the State Board to withdraw previous proposed river flow standards at the 11th hour. Delay means death to salmon, the loss of fishing jobs, likely extinctions and the collapse of the largest estuary on the West Coast. I doubt that the Board will act to restore our rivers in 30 days, but I sure hope I’m wrong.

There is a lot of bullying going on in our country now and yesterday, the State Water Board was bullied into throwing the environment and the fishing industry under the bus. It should be noted that two members of the Water Board refused to go along with it.

Nobody should be fooled into believing that the "grand bargain" promised at the Board meeting yesterday is real. Water diverters involved in those negotiations testified that they don’t have an agreement and that they still reject the basic science developed by the state.

The SFPUC played a uniquely dark role in what happened here after double-crossing the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week.”

John McManus: 650-218-8650

GGSA president John McManus is a long-time salmon fisherman and salmon advocate. He comes from a varied background that includes ten years of commercial salmon fishing in southeast Alaska, 15 years producing news for CNN and more recently, 11 years doing publicity and organizing for the public interest environmental law firm Earthjustice. Work at Earthjustice included organizing and publicity supporting restored salmon fisheries in the Columbia, Klamath and Sacramento rivers.

A San Francisco native, Muni Pier and Lake Merced were the places where he first learned to tie a fishing line, bait a hook, and cast. He’s a long time member of the Coastside Fishing Club and keeps a boat part of the year in Half Moon Bay.

From the 1970s on he spent a lot of time in the north coast salmon communities of Bodega Bay, Pt. Arena, Fort Bragg and Eureka. As salmon runs declined in the 1990’s, he got a front row seat to the demise of these communities, something that fuels his advocacy for salmon and salmon communities to this day.

The Golden Gate Salmon Association is a coalition of salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman, businesses, restaurants, a native tribe, environmentalists, elected officials, families and communities that rely on salmon.

Currently, California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually in a regular season and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. This is a huge economic bloc made up of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas, coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, the hotel and food industry, tribes, and the salmon fishing industry at large.